What substrate ? White or Black.

[Steven A]

I am wanting to add alot of live plants to my discus tank and would also like to change the gravel.
What will bring out the colours of discus more white/silver sand or black sand/substrate ?
What do you think?
BTW the tank will be planted and contain bogwood and has a light blue background
(Eventuallly)

 

[webmoose]

I vote for black.

Moose

 

[malkore]

black.
white won't look white for long, it'll quickly become dirty and stained looking.

 

[rich311k]

I love black gravel and sand. I think it makes most anyfish look good, and the bright green of the plants contrasts well against it.

 

[qwertie]

black.
white won't look white for long, it'll quickly become dirty and stained looking.

not if you clean it properly. Mine is still white.
id say black for discus but sand sand sand for community.

 

[m249saw]

I have white pool filter sand. It is a PITA to clean but when it is it looks natural (course it looks very natural dirty )

 

[mr86mister]

vote for black from here

it will totally bring out the color of the plants and fish

 

[mr funktastic]

black tahitian moon sand is my vote that stuff looks awsome. i am thinking about changing my 20 gallon community over to it.

 

[TankGirl]

I like black too, but you would be surprised at how debris shows up on it, too. I vote for mixing it, with a salt and pepper effect, which is very good at hiding debris.

 

[Titus]

two 20lb bags of black tahitian and one 20lb of white carib sand looks friggin awesome imo. thats my mix on my 50 anyway.

 

[quadrider5953]

you could make a poll and see what happens Steve. HTH

 

[Steven A]

Woooo The Pole Worked. 8)

 

[amitnarain]

definitely black. white becomes dirty overtime and require greater maintenance (cleaning). also white is brighter and this makes things difficult if you really want your fish colours to stand out in your tank.

so: go for black.

 

[Steven A]

I was thinking that, the black would make the colours of the plants and discus stand out much more and would also make left over food visable e.g. bloodworm so I can scoop it out to maintain water quality. I think I will end up with black but please can people vote on my poll lol

 

[tailbarlionfish]

black definetly - i have black for my betta. makes him luk sooooo good!!!!! 8) 8) 8) 8)

 

[rubysoho]

titus, do you have a picture of that mix? I think it sounds very interesting.

 

[oscarbreeder]

I have white in my 180g oscar tank and it isnt that hard to keep clean.
But if I had it to do over again I would probably go with the black to bring out the fish/plant colors.

 

[rubysoho]

my experience is the same as oscarbreeder. I had white in my 55 gallon and at first it was VERY white, then it turned to the nice naturally dirty white which wasn't so bad and I actually got a lot of compliments on. However, now that I took that tank down, I really don't want white again because black does help the colors on the fish stand out more.

 

[mrcrazypants05]

That would have to be expensive... 180 gal??? wow... and how would you go about cleaning it?

 

[Fishyfanatic]

With Discus, I'd go with black. I have the peppered look in all of my tanks like TG mentioned. I don't have any problems keeping the sand white. Maybe its the type of sand that is being used but mine is still nice and white.